


two of us riding nowhere

by mazzawitz



Category: The Martian (2015), The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: F/M, because deleted scenes have rained down from the heavens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-13 23:34:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7142900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mazzawitz/pseuds/mazzawitz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>because "GETTING DOWN IN SPACE"</p>
            </blockquote>





	two of us riding nowhere

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. Hi. If you're reading this, you're probably aware that yesterday, we were gifted the supreme gift of [a very, very, very, very important deleted scene](http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2016/06/07/deleted-scene-shows-who-was-getting-down-in-space/85568248/) from _The Martian_. 
> 
> And if you've learned anything about me, it's that you _knew_ I had to do something about that. 
> 
> So here we are. (Disclaimer: I wrote this fast, all within the last 24 hours. Because I was too excited to wait.)
> 
> If you need me, I'll be watching that scene 400 more times.
> 
> (title from "Two of Us" by the Beatles, a.k.a. the best johanbeck song.)

“From now on, you sleep in Beck’s room.”

Beth raised an eyebrow and couldn’t help but chuckle when an incredulous Chris asked the same question that was on her mind. 

“Where… Where am I going to sleep?” 

(Later, they’d both separately wonder how the hell they hadn’t seen exactly where this conversation was headed.)

When the words _With Johanssen_ casually left her commander’s mouth, Beth froze. Her eyes shot to Chris, who looked just as stunned as she felt. 

As he stumbled for words, the only thing Beth’s brain could process other than complete shock was how relieved she was that he was doing (or trying to do) the talking. 

Her eyes darted back to Lewis, who didn’t even look up from her notebook. 

“Cut it out, Beck. It’s a small ship. I know everything.” 

_Well._

Okay then. 

Beth looked back to Chris. She couldn’t quite pinpoint his expression. He was fidgety, a result of being a little embarrassed at being called out in front of everyone, but he mostly looked the opposite of guilty. Like if Lewis went the hard route and scolded him to his face, he might just keep laughing.

She kind of liked it.  

At the same time, Chris felt himself swelling with pride — not in a macho, "hell yeah, I'm getting laid!" way, but because of the completely unexpected, completely blissful feeling of openly (finally) acknowledging that yes, he and Beth Johanssen were together. He couldn't wipe the smile off his face after hearing someone else confirm it out loud. It felt really fucking good. 

Beth turned back to Lewis, trying and failing to hide beneath the hand pressed to her forehead. (Even if Chris was only a little embarrassed, she was still allowed to be a lot embarrassed.) 

“Are you mad?” 

Lewis met her gaze with an expression so neutral that it bordered on terrifying. 

“If this was a normal mission you would’ve broken about 30 rules.” 

_Including the ones we all broke together?_ Beth considered asking for the sake of levity. (She was very glad that she didn’t.) 

“And a couple world records, what’s up!” hollered Martinez as he jumped up from where he was sitting. 

Beth buried her face in her hand, because of _course_ he would say something like that, but she also couldn’t believe how not-mortified she was. She was… smiling? 

She watched as Martinez approached Chris, biting her lip to contain her unexpected smile and peering out from under her hand. 

“What’s _up_ , buddy! Gimme five.” 

As Chris, a little red in the face and beaming from cheek to cheek, slapped Martinez’s hand to humor him, Beth had to pull her hoodie over her face to conceal her grin. She couldn’t believe that this was happening, that they were getting exposed in front of everybody and that she was _laughing_ about it. 

“But this isn’t exactly a normal mission,” Lewis finished with a bit of a laugh. (A bit of a _laugh_. Holy shit.) 

“You gonna leave me hanging?” Martinez smirked as he waved his hand out in front of her. Beth knew he wasn’t going to leave her alone until she complied. At least Chris already did it.

“You gonna leave me hanging? Getting down in space?” Martinez repeated as Beth swatted his hand in a rather low high five before surprising herself once more by giggling into her arm. 

Across the room, Chris looked up from where he’d buried himself into his own arms and grinned as he watched her laugh, happy to see her smile when she easily could’ve been upset. 

Beth finally peered up at Lewis with a bit of disbelief still in her eyes. 

The commander simply shook her head and fought a smile. “Just keep it from interfering with your duties and I’m happy.”

Beth’s face softened as she nodded. 

Chris nodded too, a serious expression replacing his grin. 

“And I think that’s about all we need to worry about today,” Lewis said. “You three, go get your stuff moved around before bed. See you all in the morning.” 

She turned and walked toward the ladder, as did Vogel, who wore a soft smile. 

Amidst all the movement, Beth locked eyes with Chris again. He was still slouched against the window, he hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket. He made a face and shrugged as his smile began to creep back. She followed his lead when he finally stood up, and all of a sudden Martinez had a hand clapped on each of their backs. 

“Let’s do this, you crazy kids,” he teased, pushing them all toward the ladder. 

At the top of the ladder, Martinez pushed off toward the residential module. “You know, believe it or not, I’m not telling Mark about this until he gets back. Because I officially owe him 50 bucks, and the longer he can go without knowing that, the better.” 

“Why do you owe him 50 bucks?” asked Beth.   


“Because you two just announced your membership in the million-mile-high-club.”   


Chris squinted his eyes and caught himself on a handle. “Wait. Are you telling me you had a _bet_ about us?” 

Martinez let out a sharp laugh. “Oh you bet, buddy. About whether or not this would happen before we made it back to Earth.” 

Beth whipped her head around to Chris as they all floated. “Did you _tell_ them?” 

He frowned, confused. “Tell them what?” 

She opened her mouth to respond, but Martinez beat her to it. 

“Tell us he liked you?” he scoffed. “Gimme a break. We’re not idiots. We could tell he was bonkers for you since the beginning.” 

She looked at Chris, who just shrugged with another dopey smile that read _What can you do?_

“And you know,” Martinez continued, “Even though this is information that would undoubtedly brighten the poor guy’s day, I’m not above keeping this from him simply because I don’t want to concede victory to him,” Martinez continued.

“Jesus christ,” Beth mumbled as she propelled herself down the next ladder. Chris just shook his head in amusement. 

Finally at the crew bunks, Martinez disappeared into his room, babbling further about how he couldn’t believe he lost a bet to Mark Watney.

Once they were inside his own bunk, Chris took his hat off and tossed it on the bed. He ran a hand through his hair and turned to Beth, studying her for a moment. “You alright?” 

She raised her eyebrows and plopped down on the bed with a sigh. “I guess.” She was quiet for a moment. “That happened… fast.” 

Chris chuckled and sat down next to her. “Yeah.” He rested a hand on her upper back and gave her neck a gentle squeeze. 

“I mean… I’m not entirely sure how to handle this. It’s kind of weird that they know now,” she said, leaning into his touch. A few more silent moments passed. “But I suppose that went well considering neither one of us got pushed out an airlock.” 

Chris smiled to himself and ran his hand up and down her back. “Guess I should get my stuff together, then,” he finally said, standing up. 

He pulled his version of the small duffel bag they each had out from under his bed and stuffed a pair of shoes into it, and Beth started gathering random articles of his clothing and tossing them into the bag. 

Chris raised an eyebrow. “No folding?” he joked, poking fun at her usual desire-slash-necessity to keep clothes neatly folded. (A desire he did _not_ share, as they’d quickly learned.) 

She tilted her head to him and smirked. “You’re moving all this two doors down, smartass. And besides, I’m inheriting you _and_ your mess, so it’s probably going to end up dumped all over my room, anyway.”

“Bet you can’t wait for that,” he laughed, turning to gather up the belongings on his desk. When he faced her again, though, his expression had changed. He looked pensive and a little unsure. 

“You know… I know you’re just joking,” he said a few minutes later, fiddling with a pair of headphones in his hands. “But if me barging in is too much — for now, while we’re up here — we can figure something else out. I don’t have to–” 

He stopped as Beth placed her hands on either side of his face and cut him off with a kiss. 

“Chris. Stop,” she said with a smile after pulling away. “I’m sure we’ll have some new stuff to figure out, but if it means I get you to myself for more than the time we’re asleep every night, then I’m all for it.” 

He smiled and looped his arms around her waist. “Me too.” He kissed her again, then moved his lips to her neck before pulling back with a teasing look on his face. “Magic’s not gone now that the others know, is it?” 

She rolled her eyes and ruffled his hair. “Hardly,” she replied with a promising smile. 

When they left his bunk, they met Martinez in the hall carting his own belongings, then made their way back into Beth’s room. 

After a few minutes of negotiating space now that the small room had twice as many personal items in it, Lewis appeared in the partially-open doorway.

“Hey,” Chris said hesitantly, clearly curious as to whether or not this was going to be related to their last conversation. 

Looking between them both, Lewis nodded and took a breath. “I want you to know that I meant what I said. That as long as this doesn’t affect your performance on the mission, I have no issue with it.” 

Beth couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows as Lewis continued.  

“I get it. And I know you both know this would never happen under different circumstances. But these are the circumstances that we have, and this is what’s happening.” She paused. “Just _behave_ yourselves,” she said with a pointed smirk. 

Chris chuckled and nodded awkwardly, once again taking one for the team by being the one to muster up any sort of a response. 

Lewis started to leave, but then turned back to the pair. “And one more thing. Off the record, I like this,” she said, gesturing between them both. “On the record, this is a practical solution to a maintenance problem.” She smiled again, and then she was gone. 

Chris and Beth turned to each other. 

He raised an eyebrow. 

She smiled. 

He smiled. 

This was going to be fun. 

\--- 

That night, Chris realized something. 

Now that they’d been, well, _ordered_ to share a room, he didn’t have to force himself to leave Beth and her warm bed for his own room an hour before the wake-up call every morning. 

It was torture, but until now, he had to do it. They couldn’t risk emerging from the same room at the same time as the others, nor could they risk someone barging in to wake up a grumpy Beth in the morning, as the crew was sometimes known to do. (Bedroom doors on spaceships don’t lock. Safety hazard. Pain in the ass.)

Tonight, for the first time, he wouldn’t have to leave. His newly-granted privilege to sleep through the entire night curled up around her was something he planned on never taking for granted.

He was settling into bed while Beth finished up in the bathroom. When she came back, she yawned as she took off her hoodie and climbed underneath the covers. Chris, lying on his back, extended his arm out to her, and she curled up to his side, her face resting on his shoulder and her arm draped across his chest.

“You don’t have to leave tonight,” she murmured into his t-shirt. She loved the way his clothes felt, always soft and always carrying a touch of his scent.

“I was just thinking about that,” he replied, mindlessly stroking a few strands of her hair.

They lay there silently for a few moments.

“Thank god. That was the worst,” she mumbled, barely audible.

It had been a long day. The whole crew was on-edge and concerned about whether or not their attempt to rescue Mark would be successful. If there was ever a time for them to do their jobs perfectly, it was now, and the extra stress wasn’t lost on any of them.

Beth had never been great at getting the thing known as “a good night’s sleep,” but she had a feeling that tonight wouldn’t present that problem. They both fell into a peaceful rest almost instantly.

\---

When the routine wake-up beeps rang throughout the ship in the morning, Beth’s first instinct wasn’t to grumble and bury her head under her pillow like usual. Instead, she opened her eyes, blinked a few times, and sat straight up.  


Chris eventually stirred beside her and opened his eyes. 

“Morning,” she said with a yawn.

After a few moments, he furrowed his brow and propped himself up on both his elbows. “I thought you were supposed to be grumpy in the morning,” he said with a groggy voice.

“Usually,” she said with a short laugh. She sat in silence for a few moments, then looked back at him over her shoulder and smiled. “It’s just nice to wake up next to you.”

He smiled back. Using one arm to raise himself up and the other to wrap around her waist, he sat up and kissed her cheek, then rested his head on her shoulder.

Before they got up to start the day, they sat like that for a few minutes, their legs still under the blankets and their upper halves warmed by each other’s presence.

Everything else was just short of a mess, but at least they had this. 

This wasn’t going anywhere.

**Author's Note:**

> let's talk some more about how fucking perfect everything about that scene was because I'm not ready to be done talking about it yet.
> 
> guys. THEY BOTH. GAVE. MARTINEZ. HIGH FIVES.


End file.
